Test Drive

I stopped at Blicks today to get some Gamblin Fast Matte oil paints. I wanted to give them a try as they dry really quickly. I intend on using them when I travel so that my paintings dry enough to pack them for the trip home. I like to make a quick color wheel test of paints I am not familiar with and was happy with how it turned out. I use regular Gamblin oil paint, and these were very close to those. A couple of the colors seemed a bit stiff but others seemed to leak out the binder oils. I mainly used Gamsol to get the consistency right, but also used some Liquin. 

I usually have a hard time painting flowers, but thought these hydrangeas I bought at Costco might be simple to paint. Yea right. And this is the last time I will try to paint that vase! There is something about that shape and color that I just can't get right. I have tried to paint the vase several times in the past. This is not one of my favorite paintings, but it actually looks better in the photo than in real life, so I thought I would post it.

I gave my new pochade box a test drive for this painting too. It worked well and I did get a bit of paint on it to initiate it.